By The Associated Press
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) -- A grand jury will decide whether a Ball State University police officer should face criminal charges for fatally shooting a student.
Delaware County Prosecutor Richard Reed said Tuesday he would convene a grand jury because the Nov. 8 shooting of Michael McKinney “involves public perception of the entire law enforcement process, so we want to get input from citizens.”
Rookie Officer Robert Duplain shot McKinney, 21, of Bedford, four times after responding to a call about 3:30 a.m. of a stranger pounding on the door of a near-campus house.
Duplain and a witness who lives at a neighboring house have said McKinney lunged at the officer and did not follow commands to stop before the shots were fired.
Friends who were with McKinney before the shooting said that he had been drinking at near-campus bars that night and probably thought he was at a friend’s similar-looking home seven houses away from where he was shot.
Blood tests determined that McKinney had a blood-alcohol content of 0.34 percent, about four times higher than the state’s legal limit of 0.08 percent to drive.
Duplain, 24, had been with the campus police force for seven months and had not yet attended the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor J.A. Cummins said he hoped to present the case to grand jurors within a month.
“My goal is to have the case presented to a grand jury before Christmas,” Cummins said. “The faster I can move on this the better it would be for everybody involved in it, but I’m not going to sacrifice quality to do it.”
The Muncie Police Department investigated the shooting and filed a report with the prosecutor’s office. Reed on Tuesday described their investigation as “very thorough.”